Editor's note: The amount of tourism money that comes from pheasant hunters was originally misreported. The correct amount is $250 million annually.

BROWN COUNTY, S.D. -- The low, gray sky that allowed high-flushing pheasants to climb nearly out of sight couldn't hide the smoke from the burning cattail slough miles away.

It's one of many sights that speak to abrupt changes in the landscape here, changes that add up to more acres of corn and fewer acres of grasslands for pheasants and other wildlife. The scenario, driven by a combination of high prices for corn and shrinking federal conservation programs, is forcing the state, landowners and those who come here to hunt to recalibrate expectations.

"The fact is there used to be more public land, and people used to just be able to come here and hunt ditches," said Justin Larson, a pheasant hunter and outdoors spokesman for the South Dakota Department of Tourism. "Those days are gone. A lot of our ditches are mowed for hay now, and our public land isn't what it was. The sport is changing, and we need to change with it."

Those changes -- regardless of whether political impasse in Washington, D.C., leads to passage of a federal Farm Bill -- appear to be leading to a shift in hunting opportunities from public lands to private lands, from free to fee. Minnesotans who prize their trips to the land where North American pheasant hunting began should take note, as should South Dakota residents whose stake in their land is obvious.

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Today, 55 percent of out-of-state hunters to South Dakota hunt private lands and stay in a hotel, according to figures compiled by the state. In the 2011 pheasant season, nonresident pheasant hunters outnumbered residents about 111,000 to 89,000. Out-of-staters are estimated to have killed nearly three pheasants for every two that residents shot, according to surveys conducted by the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks. Out of $1.3 billion that comes into South Dakota in tourism annually, $250 million is spent by pheasant hunters.

BURNING LANDSCAPE

The cattail marsh ablaze wasn't a surprise; sightings of wildlife habitat being plowed under -- or mowed or set afire to be plowed under -- have become common in the corn belt of western Minnesota and eastern South Dakota, and on my drive along U.S. 12 from the Minnesota state line to Aberdeen, it was a rare stretch of road where a plume of brush smoke couldn't be seen.

Still, the sight of a wetland, albeit a dry one during this drought, gave me pause.

That morning, my group had hunted hard in hoarfrosted cover that didn't shed its crystalline sheath until noon, thanks to temperatures in the teens and a sky that diffused the sun. We quickly determined the best spots for the ring-necks were the thickest, most-insulating cover: cattails. (Cool-season grasses that also can provide winter cover aren't as thick as normal years, because of the drought.)

Busting through the middle of head-high and higher stands of cattails is about the toughest cover to hunt for ring-necked pheasants, but our rewards were a few roosters in the bag and numerous flushes, mostly hens, that kept the dogs energized and our hearts pumping warm blood to our numbing fingers.

But then there it was, in the distance at first, but now right in front of us as we drove back to town: the best winter cover around, on fire.

CROP INSURANCE

To understand why a farmer would destroy a wetland, you need to understand something about crop insurance. Many shallow ponds and marshes are classified under federal regulations as "farmed wetlands." They can't be drained, but they can be farmed if they're dry, and many are right now.

Ephemeral wetlands might not seem like the best place to grow corn, but a return on the investment is guaranteed. If a farmer can get seed into the ground and corn grows, the return is obvious, especially with prices hovering near $8 a bushel.

If the crop fails because, say, the wetland fills up in the spring, the farmer can claim the loss under federal crop insurance, potentially for several years.

Needless to say, conservationists don't like this policy, and there's a push in Congress to end it. When you hear phrases such as "tying swampbuster provisions to federal crop insurance," that's what they're talking about. The Farm Bill that was approved by the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate does that; the Republican-controlled House version doesn't. Thus, conservation and environmental groups are lobbying for the Senate version, which also contains "sodsaver" provisions that seek to remove tax incentives for plowing under native prairie.

LAND BOOM

Regardless of what Farm Bill, if any, passes, federal conservation programs in the corn belt are almost certain to continue to shrink.

The biggest, the Conservation Reserve Program, pays farmers to idle lands and grow wildlife habitat. The payments can't keep up with a skyrocketing real estate market driven by the high price of commodity corn.

When I was in Aberdeen earlier this month, the story across the front page of the Aberdeen American News was that a 158-acre tract of farmland sold at auction for $13,000 an acre, the latest record in a series of land sales records in an area where $1,000-an-acre land isn't a distant memory.

Income from corn -- or corn subsidies in the form of crop insurance -- rapidly has outstripped income from CRP and other programs. In the meantime, belt-tightening in Washington is leading to a major reduction in CRP spending. South Dakota had more than 1.1 million acres of CRP land as of July, but the number is shrinking fast -- literally going up in smoke -- as contracts expire and farmers decline to renew. (Much of the plowing and burning of grasslands is the result of expired CRP land being converted to row crops.)

Even landowners who have attempted to base their income on hunting rather than farming are feeling the pinch.

"I took 90 acres out of CRP this year, and it was like drinking poison, but I had to do it," said Cyrus Mahmoodi, a Woodbury resident who owns 2,500 acres near Clark, S.D., and operates the Double P Ranch, a pheasant and waterfowl hunting lodge. Mahmoodi said he and a circle of friends with a primary goal of habitat -- "I'd be happy if I made half as much as farming" -- are expecting not to renew CRP contracts.

"If my friends and I aren't going to renew, then nobody's going to renew," he said. "We're the last guys to convert grass to crops."

Matt Morlock, a Pheasants Forever biologist who works out of a federal office supporting conservation programs, can back up such claims. "My job is to sign up landowners, and I've been failing," he said. "We can't compete with corn."

RECOVERY POSSIBLE

I was in Aberdeen on what amounted to a modest media junket sponsored by Pheasants Forever and South Dakota and Aberdeen tourism agencies. (The Pioneer Press reimbursed a local charity for the covered expenses.)

The point of the trip was to show both the attributes of the area (lots of habitat, lots of birds) as well as the challenges (loss of habitat, loss of birds). You don't need an organized hunt to see both.

One look at the state's atlas of publicly accessible hunting grounds shows what everyone already knows: South Dakota is rich in habitat, and one would be hard-pressed to argue Minnesota has any edge on it.

But drive to one of those colored squares today (the season runs until Jan. 6), and you might be surprised. Much of the Walk-In Areas are privately owned land enrolled in CRP -- or at least, they were enrolled when the map was drawn. Some are now cornfields.

Other parcels look more like links golf courses than pheasant cover. That's the result of emergency mowing allowed on 1 million acres of CRP lands by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Over the summer the USDA opened up the land to feed drought-stressed cattle. No more than half of any parcel could be mowed or grazed, so some cover remains. Haying and grazing ended early enough to allow the grass to recover, in theory, but it still hasn't rained much, and many swaths remain as stubble.

The good news for hunters is that mowing, grazing, fire and other disturbances are beneficial to grasslands, and many hadn't been disturbed in years.

As for the burning cattail slough, next spring it and others like it might appear, to the untrained eye, as if the wetland had been erased from the landscape. But it hasn't. Wetland seed banks remain viable for decades, if not longer. In general, wetlands are easier to restore than grasslands.